In Which You Guys These Are Like The Best Links or Something

Monday Links Shatter Glass Ceilings

by Alex Carnevale

Since we first proclaimed Hillary dead, she’s been spinning in her grave just fast enough to become one of the best runner-ups in the history of the primaries. Her future is certainly brighter than of another glorious runner-up, Denise Richards, whose spray-tan scares even the most ardent of her supporters.

While Hillary fully embraced her rival, she began the campaign in earnest for the VP ticket. He’ll never choose her, and she should recuse herself from consideration immediately. Why be seen as a loser twice?

That doesn’t mean there isn’t life after this campaign for Hillary. Time to give her credit. I thought Obama would win since I saw his cherubic face take the stage at the last DNC convention, but I never thought Hillary would become as appealing as a candidate as she has. I would have rather had an actual succubus as our president before this campaign; now I find the new Hillary a compelling, engaging and charismatic figure.

In this campaign, she has proven herself to be one hell of a candidate. Despite the missteps of advisors, her speechmaking was never better. She’s deft on her feet, she actually cares about what she’s doing, and she seems like a nice person you might want to spend some time with.

During her racist slutbag husband’s presidency, I don’t think we actually ever knew her as well as we thought we did. And now that we do, the general consensus seems to be that she’ll fade away from the political scene at the young age of 60. Considering the Republicans have gone to great lengths to nominate someone who looks like a troll you might find under a bridge, I don’t think that’s the case.

wouldn’t that have been a celeb couple to die for? damn you father time!

There is a third act for Hillary in American politics. We’re not as sick of her as we thought, and a 68 year old woman can certainly look better under the camera’s glare than a woman could have during Margaret Thatcher‘s time.

Forgive me for reducing it to her looks, but since we can assume her brain isn’t decomposing, it’s the major obstacle to a run for president in 2016, when she’ll be 68.

My 90 year old grandmother can probably run for Senate, and the way Hillary’s aging, with the help of her favorite plastic surgeon, she can easily be considered the favorite. Current 68 year olds:

raquel welch – nah, I don’t think she had plastic surgery, what do you think?

faye dunaway – would never let a surgeon touch her perfect skin, neither should hillary

julie christie with about 12 pounds of base on her face. Is this Hillary’s actual future?

Of course, Indiana Jones star Karen Allen didn’t age as well as the ladies above. She’s only 58, and look how she’s let herself go:

eeee karen!!!!

When Spielberg asked Karen if she’d be in the movie, he didn’t say she’d be the Crystal Skull.

I brought back a piece of its rock
Heavy dark-honey color
With a seam of crystal, some of the quartz
Stained by its matrix
Practically indestructible
A shift from opacity to brilliance
(The Zenbos say, “Lightning-flash & flint-spark”)
Like the mountains where it was made
What we see of the world is the mind’s
Invention and the mind
Though stained by it, becoming
Rivers, sun, mule-dung, flies-
Can shift instantly
A dirty bird in a square time

A million cars have been banned from Beijing, and 200 million trees planted. This is an effort to combat the city’s pollution, which is severe. They have prohibited tobacco for the Olympic period: You can’t smoke on public transport or in indoor workplaces — a real sacrifice for a heavily smoking nation. There will be anti-spitting patrols. Citizens have been admonished to be polite to foreigners. And government workers have been warned to watch their morals: These men are not to have their energies “dissipated by wine and women.”

The name of the Propaganda Department has been changed to “Publicity Department” — for the benefit of English speakers (only). Chinese scientists have been tinkering with the weather, as they are wont to do. They practice “rain mitigation,” and they are doing their best to ensure that no rain, or less rain, falls on the Olympics. And, in order to make way for improvements, and to make Beijing sightlier, the government has razed whole neighborhoods, once filled with traditional huts. There is not much thought to the people displaced.

Westerners marvel at what the Chinese authorities can accomplish, and the speed with which they can accomplish it. They are even envious. An American acting as a senior adviser to the Beijing Olympic Committee said, “The ability to get things done here is really staggering. In Los Angeles, it would take endless discussions to build any structure. Here they decide to do it, and kaboom! It happens.” Yes, dictatorships are known to be good at that sort of thing.

Iraqis have experienced lulls in the past — notably after the January 2005 elections — only to see violence flare again.

“The security situation is much better than in the past three or four months, and I am making more money now,” said Falih Radhi, who runs a food store in eastern Baghdad. “Despite this, I have a feeling that this positive situation won’t last long and that violence may come back again.”